Announcements Archive

This section contains copies of the recent email messages that have been sent to the OTEC Distribution List that consists of all OTEC members. It also contains some of the Announcements posted in the Announcements of the Home Page.

Economic future of the US and the world"The World is Flat." Video of a speech, and also a nice interview, with Thomas Friedman. All educators should become familiar with this major paradigm shift brought on by ICT.

Free books and other materials from Dave Moursund. Three books have been recently revised.

ISTE's SIG Teacher Education is presenting a full day workshop on preservice teacher education, for NECC 2005. Extensive Website.

The state of Oregon has not established specific content
standards and benchmarks in technology. Nevertheless, the
state believes that technology plays an essential role in a
student's education. To that end the following revisions to
the Technology Common Curriculum Goals were adopted by the
State Board in March 2002:

Demonstrate proficiency in the use of technological
tools and devices.

Select and use technology to enhance learning and
problem solving.

Access, organize and analyze information to make
informed decisions, using one or more technologies.

Use technology in an ethical and legal manner and
understand how technology affects society.

Design, prepare and present unique works using
technology to communicate information and ideas.

Extend communication and collaboration with peers,
experts and other audiences using telecommunications.

While all schools in Oregon are equipped with technology
and most have a technology plan, each school's capacity and
resources are different. Consequently school districts may,
as some already have, establish their own content standards
and benchmarks in technology around their individual needs
and resources.

National standards in technology have been developed
through a partnership between the International Society for
Technology in Education (ISTE), the U.S. Department of
Education and a wide variety of curriculum and educational
organizations. These national standards as well as input
from teachers, technology specialists, administrators,
business representatives and professional organizations were
used in reviewing and revising Oregon's Technology CCGs.

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Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 17:07:30 -0800 (PST)

From: Dave Moursund <moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: ocite: Welcome to new OTEC members

Hello, and Welcome to people who have recently joined the
Oregon Technology in Education Council.

From time to time (averaging a little less than twice per
week) I send a message to the OTEC membership on a topic
that may be of interest to members.

Copies of the messages sent during the past nine months
can be retrieved by clicking on Archived Announcements
(whick is about midway down the page) on the OTEC Home Page
at http://otec.uoreogn.edu/

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message) to
<majordomo@lists.uoregon.edu>
with the following command in the body of your email
message:

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--------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 13:13:55 -0800 (PST)

From: Dave Moursund
<moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: Advance Placement via Distance Learning
Courses

ONLINE ADVANCED-PLACEMENT COURSES FOR HIGH SCHOOL
STUDENTS

The University of Wisconsin at Madison announced it will
create a series of online advanced-placement courses for
high school students. The courses will be developed under
the auspices of a new organization, the Wisconsin Advanced
Placement Distance Learning Consortium, created at the
university's School of Education. The university will train
high-school teachers to administer the courses, which will
be available next fall. According to an official involved,
25 percent of Wisconsin's high schools do not offer
advanced-placement courses, while some schools only provide
a few. The online nature of the courses is intended to make
them available to the state's rural and inner-city students,
many of whom do not have access to such courses otherwise.
Organizers expect initially to offer courses in 12 subjects
to between 500 and 700 students. Chronicle of Higher
Education, 19 November 2002 (Edupage 20 November 2002

This is an excellent project and Website. The following
description is quoted from a National Science Foundation
Press Release of 11/18/02:

Project Targets Online Collection of 10,000 Books from
100 Cultures

Led by the University of Maryland and the Internet
Archive, a partnership of government, non-profit, industry
and academic organizations will launch the world's largest
international digital library for children on Wednesday,
Nov. 20, during a ceremony at the Library of Congress. The
project is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF)
with additional support from other partners as part of a
long-term research project to develop new technology to
serve young readers.

The new International Children's Digital Library (ICDL)
will provide children ages 3 to 13 years with an
unparalleled opportunity to experience different cultures
through literature. The new digital library will begin with
200 books in 15 languages representing 27 cultures, with
plans to grow over five years to 10,000 books representing
100 different cultures.

You also need Java 1.4 installed which you can download
for free. Unix machine with 256 Meg RAM with broadband
network connection, and Java 1.4 installed which also can be
downloaded for free.

--------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2002 11:49:14 -0800 (PST)

From: Dave Moursund
<moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: Additions and updates to the OTEC Website

Here is a list of the Announcements on the Home Page of
the OTEC Website. The address for the Home Page is
http://OTEC/uoregon.edu/

The Parents & Their Children section of this Website
has been revised and updated as of 11/19/02.

A new section has recently been added on Data,
Information, Knowledge, and Wisdom. Can a computer system be
knowledgeable and wise?

Dave Moursund recently completed a 48 page booklet: Brief
Introduction to Roles of Computers in Problem Solving. This
is available for free in both HTML and PDF formats. It is
designed for preservice and inservice teachers

A section on American Indian Education, with a special
emphasis on American Indians in Oregon, has recently been
added to this Website. If you have information on uses of
computer technology in American Indian education in Oregon
or elsewhere, please send it to Website Author "Dr. Dave"
Moursund.

The International Society for Technology in Education has
created a Special Interest Group for School Administrators.
See: http://www.iste.org/sigadmin/. OTEC is an organization
affiliate of ISTE.

--------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 08 Nov 2002 10:40:26 -0800 (PST)

From: Dave Moursund
<moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: Urban schools and good teachers

Arthur Levine is president and professor of education at
Teachers College, Columbia University. A 1982 Guggenheim
Fellowship winner, Levine has also won other awards
including the American Council on Education's Book of the
Year Award in 1974 and the Educational Press Association's
annual award for writing in 1981 and 1989. He co-authored
Beating the Odds with Jana Nidiffer. The following brief
news item stresses the need for well prepared teachers and
for increased investment in addressing the problems of urban
public schools. : Public Education Network
PEN@PublicEducation.org is an excellent source of brief news
items such as this.

EDUCATION REFORM: THE WAR WE HAVE CHOSEN TO
LOSE

Do you agree that the U.S. does not care about urban
schools and the children who attend them? That is the
conclusion of Arthur Levine, who writes that the nation's
urban public schools will not substantially improve without
a sufficient investment. The improvement with the greatest
effect on student learning is a well-prepared and
experienced teacher. These teachers will not work in inner
cities until salaries and incentives are higher than in
suburbs, which offer easier working conditions. States, but
also Washington, have to invest more heavily in cities than
in suburbs if they expect to see real changes. Putting
businessmen in charge and installing standards and tests
won't win the war either. Urban public schools need
teachers, facilities and curriculum materials. The argument
that there is no money doesn't make sense. There is money
for tax cuts, money for war, money to bail out faltering
industries. How can there be no money for children and
schools? http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/
la-oe-levine4nov04,0,3783078.stor y?
coll=la%2Dnews%2Dcomment%2Dopinions (From: Public Education
Network PEN@PublicEducation.org November 8, 2002)

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Date: Tue, 05 Nov 2002 11:27:03 -0800 (PST)

From: Dave Moursund
<moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: IT in Math Education

I have previously mentioned my work on IT in Math
Education. I have

recently updated this site. One important added piece is
a discussion of What is Mathematics, presented from a
computer-oriented point of view. See the What is Mathematics
menu item at http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~moursund/Math/

The main idea presented there and in the Major Unifying
Themes section is that math education can be significantly
improved through better teacher education and through
appropriate and routine integration of computers and
calculators into the curriculum, instruction, and
assessment. And, of course, there needs to be greatly
increased emphasis on general ideas of problem solving, such
as those presented in

http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~moursund/SPSB/

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Date: Tue, 05 Nov 2002 11:19:16 -0800 (PST)

From: Dave Moursund
<moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: Archival Storage

The following brief news item has been added to the News
Items section of the OTEC Website.

Researchers Work to Preserve Languages

Some have predicted that between 50 and 90 percent of the
world's languages will disappear within the next hundred
years. An initiative called the Rosetta Project aims to
create an archive of more than 1,400 languages facing
extinction. According to Doug Whalen, founder of the
Endangered Language Fund, no digital technology has "a ghost
of a chance of being taken as seriously archival" for the
long term. The Rosetta Project will use technology created
by Los Alamos Laboratories and Norsam Technologies that
micro-etches text on a high-density storage disk. The disk
is expected to last for 2,000 years and can be read with a
1,000 power microscope, ensuring that it will be useful and
accessible for many future generations. For each language,
the disk will contain vocabulary lists, grammar, numbering
systems, and sample texts. Wired News, 4 November 2002
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,54345,00.html
(Edupage, November 04, 2002)

I found this article interesting both because of its
topic area (the American Indian component of the OTEC
Website at http://otec.uoregon.edu/american_indians.htm has
been significantly expanded in the past week) but also
because of its mention of an archival storage method that
may last 100 times as long as storage on a CD or DVD.

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Date: Sat, 02 Nov 2002 10:36:27 -0800 (PST)

From: Dave Moursund
<moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Cc: Pat Rounds <plrounds@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

Subject: Search Engines in foreign languages

Go to http://www.cyberdifference.com/ and select Foreign
Search Engine Directory from the left side menu. There you
will see lots of search engines in lots of languages.

You may want to tell the foreign langauges teachers in
your school about this site.

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Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2002 09:40:17 -0800 (PST)

From: Dave Moursund
<moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: Free Booklet on Problem Solving

As part of my "continuing saga" of being retired, I have
just thoroughly revised and somewhat expanded a booklet:

Brief Introduction to Roles of Computers in Problem
Solving

It is available (free) in both HTML and PDF formats. The
intended audience is preservice and inservice teachers, and
other educators. The PDG version is 46 pages in length. My
belief is that booklet would be useful in any preservice
teachers' Methods Course as well as in courses specifically
on IT in Education.

It is available at:

http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~moursund/SPSB/

--------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2002 11:00:22 -0700 (PDT)

From: Dave Moursund
<moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: ISTE's New Resource for Integrating Handhelds in
Classrooms

Many schools are considering the use of handheld
computers (palm tops). The message given below is from ISTE
and describes a new book they have just published.

Just a quick note that ISTE's new book, PALM HANDHELD
COMPUTERS--A COMPLETE RESOURCE FOR CLASSROOM TEACHERS, is in
stock NOW. The authors--Michael Curtis, Bard Williams,
Cathleen Norris, David O'Leary, and Elliot Soloway--are
early adopters with many years of experience between them
and have distilled their field knowledge into a practical,
accessible guide for using, managing, and integrating
handhelds into standards-based K-12 curricula.

Tell your colleagues they'll find:

a practical, accessible guide complete with an
overview of Palm technology, lesson plans, and assessment
resources; * tips and templates for managing student use
of handhelds;

an included CD-ROM of freeware programs developed at
the University of Michigan's Center for Highly
Interactive Computing in Education (Hi-CE);

We're very excited about PALM HANDHELD COMPUTERS and
trust you'll help spread the word about this new,
technology-rich resource from ISTE. And, don't forget that
we offer special prices for members and bulk buyers.
Sincerely,

Jack Buchanan Director, Membership Services

P.S. This resource also has a companion Student Software
Guide! Look for it at www.iste.org/bookstore/.

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Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2002 10:27:26 -0700 (PDT)

From: Dave Moursund
<moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: Art Education

Over the years, schools have cut out more and more of
what many consider to be essential components of education,
such as art and music provided by specialists in these
areas.

Thus, the regular classroom teacher is increasingly
responsible for such components of a child's education at
the elementary school level.

The Knowledge Loom has launched a new spotlight --
Teaching For Artistic Behavior: Choice-based Art Education.
It focuses on student-centered learning. We are also adding
some new success stories throughout the month. The Website
address is: http://knowledgeloom.org/tab/index.jsp

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Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2002 10:15:01 -0700 (PDT)

From: Dave Moursund
<moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: All education is social (says a leading computer
scientist)

Johan de Kleer is Manager of the Systems and Practices
Laboratory, Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). Widely
published in the areas of qualitative physics, model-based
reasoning, truth maintenance systems, and knowledge
representation, he has co-authored three books: "Readings in
Qualitative Physics," "Readings in Model-Based Diagnosis,"
and "Building Problem Solvers." In the award designating him
an ACM Fellow, de Kleer was praised for his "seminal
contributions of effective techniques for qualitative
representation and reasoning about physical systems, and
leadership in building research teams that span multiple
disciplines."

The following is quoted from:
http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/interviews/j_dekleer_1.html

DE KLEER: The biggest thing was coming to PARC and
watching how people actually use technology and learning to
manage and see how organizations actually function. And
discovering that all learning is social. Perhaps now I'm
being too social, but you have to balance the two. One
without the other gets you nothing. Getting back to the
physicist: the path he envisions will take far longer than
he ever expects. He needs a far deeper understanding of what
he is actually looking for. Pure bottom-up approaches have
not created the breakthroughs in science, and I do not
believe they will succeed in artificial intelligence.
Remember, studying feathers and birds did not get us
flight

--------------

I feel the entire interview article is worth reading. It
gives some insights into the direction of research on
Artificial Intelligence as well as the direction of the
Web.

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Date: Thu, 03 Oct 2002 08:47:33 -0700 (PDT)

From: Dave Moursund
<moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: Computational Science

The National Science Foundation has released a very
interesting report: Computation As a Tool for Discovery in
Physics. http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2002/nsf02176/start.htm

A few highlights of the 51 page report are given
below.

The report emphasizes the importance of "computation" as
an approach in all sciences, not just in physics. Also (see
the last paragraph given below) it emphasized the need for
changes in education to reflect the powers of computational
science.

In very brief summary, computational science is
developing and using computer models of science
problems.

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Date: Thu, 19 Sep 2002 10:50:51 -0700 (PDT)

From: Dave Moursund
<moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: A computer game

I found the following brief news item interesting for two
reasons:

1. It highlights a some gaming software that girls use as
much as boys.

2. It indicates that gaming software is now being used to
advertise specific brands of consumer products.

In the olden days, video game makers paid tens
of thousands of dollars to car makers to use real-world
race cars in their driving games, and millions of dollars
to the NFL to use its teams in their football games. Now,
in what's considered a seismic shift for the industry,
Electronic Arts has inked a multimillion deal with Intel
and McDonald's in which the companies will be the ones
spending money for the privilege of seeing their logos in
EA's "The Sims Online" -- the latest version of the
popular "Sims" series. The game enables players to
simulate real life, choosing occupations, buying and
furnishing houses, dating, marrying and having kids. Half
of its players are girls and young women, which is
unusual because computer games typically skew toward boys
and young men. In the new game, players will be able to
buy Intel PCs, which will help them boost their
characters' logic skills and fun factor, and can run a
McDonald's kiosk to make money. "We felt we could
strengthen our brand identity and increase awareness of
our products with the women and young adults who play
this game," says the director of co-marketing at Intel.
"This is our first product placement in an online
environment. Before this, we did very, very little in the
way of product placement." (Los Angeles Times 16 Sep
2002) (NewsScan Daily, 16 September 2002 ("Above The
Fold")

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Note: The following refers to preparation of
technology-oriented teachers and facilitators.

The NCATE standards lie at the heart of quality teacher
preparation. ISTE has developed performance assessment
standards for initial and advanced educational computing and
technology programs including:

the technology facilitation initial endorsement;

the technology leadership advanced program; and

the secondary computer science education preparation
programs. Institutions offering one or more of these
programs should respond to the corresponding set of
program standards.

Technology Facilitation (TF) -- Initial Endorsement
Standards Technology Facilitation (TF) endorsement programs
meeting ISTE standards prepare candidates to serve as
building/campus-level technology facilitators. Candidates
completing this program will exhibit knowledge, skills, and
dispositions equipping them to teach technology
applications; demonstrate effective use of technology to
support student learning of content; and provide
professional development, mentoring, and basic technical
assistance for other teachers who require support in their
efforts to apply technology to support student learning.
(Revised Fall 2001)

Secondary Computer Science Education (CSED) --
Endorsement/Degree Program Standards Secondary Computer
Science Education programs meeting ISTE standards prepare
candidates to serve as teachers of computer science in
secondary schools. They focus on preparing their students in
the more technical aspects of computing such as problem
analysis, algorithm selection and evaluation; program
design, implementation, specification, and verification; and
systems analysis. (Revised 1997 -- Slated for Revision, Fall
2002) The draft proposed new standards are available at
http://cnets.iste.org/. See: NCATE NEWS (9/10/02) Proposed
Secondary Computer Science Education Standards to be
reviewed for adoption by NCATE in October of 2002.

--------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 11 Aug 2002 14:08:30 -0700 (PDT)

From: Dave Moursund
<moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: Suggestion for a project-based learning
activity

The brief news item given below indicates that 10% of the
electricity use in North America is for powering computer
systems.

Here is a project to be done by a team of students in a
school. Decide on several categories of electricity use in
your school, such as lights, heating, computers, air
conditioning, and so on. Gather data to make good estimates
of the electricity use in each category. Report on the
results.

Expand the project by working with a number of schools.
The schools first have to agree to the categories of
electricity use that they will explore. They can then gather
data and do a compare/contrast across schools.

========

IBM INVESTIGATES LOW-POWER COMPUTERS

IBM's Low Power Center, located at the company's Austin,
Texas, research lab, will receive $2 million in funding from
the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
According to IBM, an average data center spends 25 percent
of its budget on electricity to run and cool computers, and
10 percent of North America's electricity is used for IT
systems. The Low Power Center works to develop computers
that use significantly less power without sacrificing
performance. Nick Donofrio of IBM said that though chips
seem to be a reasonable place to start, the entire computer
must be examined for ways to save electricity. The DARPA
grant will support research into low-power storage systems
as well as other projects. CNET, 6 August 2002
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-948677.html (Edupage, August
07, 2002)

--------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 10:09:03 -0700 (PDT)

From: Dave Moursund
<moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: Free book on grant writing for technology in
education

I have completed the revisions on my book on Obtaining
Resources for Technology in Education. The complete book is
available on the web at:
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~moursund/
GrantWriting/index.htm

My recent reading of the literature suggests that one way
that a school can improve itself is to have a number of the
faculty, administrators, and other staff, and Site Council
members working jointly in grant writing and other
activities to obtain resources. This does several
things:

With luck and persistence, it obtains resources.

It develops a community of people who work together
(to obtain resources).

It provides a pathway for professional growth
(capacity building) for the people who are involved.

At the National Educational Technology Conference in June
I was the lead presenter in a full day workshop designed to
teach grant writing. The goal was to teach faculty in
teacher education programs how to design and implement a
unit on grant writing into their preservice or insrvice
teacher education programs. I have been doing that in my
courses for a number of years. One of my co-presenters,
Keith Wetzel at Arizona State University West does it for
his students. The unit of instruction that I use takes about
three class hours, along with the appropriate correspond
amount of outside of class reading and homework.

So ... if you teach preservice or inservice teachers, I
would like to work with you to help you learn to implement
such a unit of instruction. I am interested in the
possibility of doing "several" free workshops around the
state of Oregon on this topic. (These would be paid for by
my PTTT grant.)

I am looking for situations in which I would do a full
day workshop for some combination of teachers of preservice
and inservice teachers, inservice or preservice teachers who
might be interested, Site Council members, etc. The workshop
can accommodate perhaps 20 to 30 people, or so. Participants
would gain the knowledge and skills to beging writing grant
proposals.

If you are interested in arranging for such a workshop
during the coming academic year, please cotact me. Note that
while my grant will pay my full costs, it will not pay for
coffee breaks and/or lunch for participants in the workshop.
The local site will need to provide appropraite facilities.
The workshop is probably best done in a hands on environment
with no more than two people per machine, and with Web
access.

--------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2002 11:14:37 -0700 (PDT)

From: Dave Moursund
<moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: IT-Using Teacher Education Faculty
<or-it-scde@lists.uoregon.edu>

Cc: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: IT in TAG and ESOL

I am sending this message both to the general OTEC list
and to the IT-Using Teacher Education Faculty. The latter is
one of the OTEC Discussion Groups that is open to anyone who
wants to join and participate in discussions.

At the end of this past term I did my usual Exit
Interviews with students in a preservice teacher education
course I teach. Two topics that came up seem to me
particularly relevant to OTEC.

This particular group of preservice elementary
education majors were in a five-year program of study,
and they took the Information Technology specialization
during their fifth year. During the five year program
they studied both general education and special
education, and achieved licensure in both areas. BUT,
during their five-year program of study they claim that
they received exactly one hour of instruction on Talented
and Gifted Education. (That was before I gave them some
readings and an assignment on Information Technology and
TAG.) I am wondering if other teacher education programs
in the state do better than this. (It is hard to imagine
that they do worse!)

As far as I can determine, the situation in terms of
English as a Second or Other Language is equally grim.
The state of Oregon has a steadily growing number of ESOL
students. Significant progress is occurring in ways to
make effective use of Information Technology as an aid to
these students (Computer-Assisted Language Learning).
Thus, I am wondering what the preservice teacher
education programs in Oregon are doing in terms of
preparing all preservice teachers to work with ESOL
students, and preparing them to make effective use of
Information Technology in working with such
students.

The OTEC Website contains some useful resources on both
TAG and ESOL. See:

http://otec.uoregon.edu/special_and_gifted.htm

http://otec.uoregon.edu/esol.htm

People interested in ESOL will also want to take a look
at the recently updated Website:

http://www.lclark.edu/~krauss/toppicks/toppicks.html

Michael Krauss, who maintains this Website, is one of the
leaders in ESL and technology in Oregon and the nation.

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Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2002 11:20:19 -0700 (PDT)

From: Dave Moursund
<moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: Telecommuting workers and students

The following brief news item is quoted from NewsScan
Daily, 17 June 2002.It gives some specific data on current
levels of telecommuting in the US. From a student point of
view, going to school is a job. Thus, one can view the
steady increase in the use of Distance Learning as a type of
telecommuting. And, of course, some of the teachers of these
telecommuting students are also telecommuting.

TELECOMMUTING STILL GAINING IN POPULARITY

The number of U.S. workers toiling at home three or more
days a week rose nearly 23%, from 3.4 million in 1990 to 4.2
million in 2000, according to U.S. Census figures.
Meanwhile, the estimated number of workers telecommute at
least some portion of the week jumped more than 42% in two
years, from 19.6 million in 1999 to 28 million in 2001,
according to the International Telework Association and
Council (ITAC). Most telecommuters live in New England and
on the East and West coasts in areas with dense population
and notorious traffic congestion, and more than two-thirds
of telecommuters polled for an ITAC survey expressed
satisfaction over their at-home worker status. "They're
saying, 'This is three hours I don't need to be in the car,
and I could be with my kids, pick (up) the dry cleaning, or
whatever,'" says ITAC president Tim Kane. A formal E-Worker
program instituted two years ago at Cigna Corp. has seen
productivity increases of up to 15% among teleworkers while
job turnover rates in some divisions of the company were cut
in half. (AP 16 Jun 2002)
http://apnews.excite.com/article/
20020616/D7K6EEM00.html

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Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 10:55:41 -0700 (PDT)

From: Dave Moursund
<moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: Arguments against IT in education

Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 09:55:08 -0700 (PDT)

Larry Cuban, a professor at Stanford, provides some of
the best work being done in this field. The reference given
below is to a 2001 book by Cuban. You might want to pay
particular attention to the next to last paragraph in the
review materials quoted below.

------------------------

Cuban, Larry. (2001). Oversold and Underused: Computers
in the Classroom. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. A
review of this book is available at: Accessed 6/13/02:
http://coe.asu.edu/edrev/reviews/rev168.htm. Quoting from
the review:

To find out if computers are changing education practice,
Stanford historian of technology in education, Larry Cuban,
took a look at the impact of computers in the community
where extensive integration seems most likely. He looked
into the preschools, Kindergartens and secondary schools
where the people who develop the new technologies send their
children. He also looked at Stanford University, an
institution that feeds the developers of the high tech
industries of the Silicon Valley region of California.

At every level he examined, there was the unexpected
outcome: "In the schools we studied, we found no clear and
substantial evidence of students increasing their academic
achievement as a result of using information technologies."
(p. 133) So where is the problem? Not in lack of access:
"Students and teachers had access to computers and related
technologies available in both their homes and their
schools." (p. 132)

Cuban also rejects the most common response from critics
of the schools, what he calls the "blame and train"
approach--technophobic teachers who must be forced to be
trained. He found little evidence of resistance by teachers
to using technology. In fact, many used it extensively to
prepare their work, communicate with parents, colleagues and
students, maintain records, and carry out research. However,
"less than 5 percent of teachers integrated computer
technology into their curriculum and instructional
routines." (p. 133) In fact, "the overwhelming majority of
teachers employed the technology to sustain existing
patterns of teaching rather than to innovate." (p. 134)

Cuban does not find that result disturbing--or even
surprising. In his previous studies of the introduction of
new technologies over the past century, the results were
similar. This happened with radio, film, television and the
early use of large "main frame" computers. Promoters claimed
that each new technology would revolutionize schools. In
fact, each received some use, but within the context of
existing instructional practices.

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From: Dave Moursund
<moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: Increasing use of online education

The National School Board Foundation recently
commissioned a study that asked a variety of interesting
questions about IT in education. The study surveyed a large
number of schools at the precollege level. For details, go
to the Website: http://www.nsbf.org/thereyet/index.htm

Here is one example of what the study revealed:

What percentage of students will be receiving one-third
or more of their instruction online in the next three
years?

None at all to 9% ------------- 34%

10% to 20% -------------------- 37%

21% to 40% -------------------- 18%

41% to 60% --------------------- 5%

61% to 80% --------------------- 3%

81% to 100% -------------------- 2%

Source: Grunwald Associates

Suppose that this data proves to be a modestly accurate
predictor of the future. Then about 2/3 of students will be
receiving 10% or more of their education via distance
learning. This suggests that it will be routine for a
teacher to be teaching some students who are taking a
distance learning course.

To continue the analysis. Let's use just the minimal 10%
figure. With well over 50 million students in US school, 2/3
of this is about 34 million, and 10% of that is 3.4 million.
If this number of students take 1/3 of their coursework by
distance learning, this is equivalent to somewhat more than
a million full time equivalents! That number is roughly the
same as the number of students that are being home
schooled.

The point is, we may well be beginning to see a major
change in our public education system based on increased use
of distance learning.

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Date: Thu, 06 Jun 2002 08:52:54 -0700 (PDT)

From: Dave Moursund
<moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: Guidelines for checking web resources

The following reference is to an article written for
journalists. But, its underlying ideas are relevant to a
much wider audience.

Evaluating online information is one of the trickiest and
most important parts of using the Internet in your
reporting, so I thought I'd follow up Sree's tips on judging
accuracy with a checklist to help guide you. Here are five
steps for assessing information quality (IQ) that you should
run through before relying on anything found online:

Authority: Who wrote it, why, and what are their
credentials? Who published it and why? With whom are the
author and publisher affiliated?

Objectivity: What opinions or biases, if any, are
expressed? Is there a sponsor that might have influenced the
content? Is the site a mask for advertising or an agenda?
Could it be satire or a hoax?

Timeliness: When was it produced and last updated? Is it
up-to-date?

Sourcing: What is the source of the information and is it
reliable?

Verification: Find at least one other reputable source,
preferably not online, that provides similar
information.

If you can't determine even one of these, then you
probably shouldn't rely on the information.

-------

This reference has been added to the Journalism page of
the Integrating IT Into Each Subject Area of the Website
http://otec.uoregon.edu/

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Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 10:59:15 -0700 (PDT)

From: Dave Moursund
<moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: OTEC is now an ISTE Affiliate Member

OTEC is now an ISTE Affiliate. (5/28/02) Details on the
meaning of being an ISTE Affiliate Member are available on
the ISTE Website at http://www.iste.org/members/affiliates/.
Quoting from that Website: ISTE affiliates form an
international network of local and regional non-profit
organizations dedicated to improving teaching and learning
through the appropriate use of educational technology. ISTE
works to provide affiliates with a national and
international context within which to address concerns of
local, regional, and international import.

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Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 10:59:07 -0700 (PDT)

From: Dave Moursund
<moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: Distance Learning Learning Opportunity

A final reminder to sign up for the Online Learning
Institute to be held at Jackson ESD in Medford from June
24-28. Cost is only $65 for a weeklong inservice in online
teaching and learning.

Go to http://www.jacksonesd.k12.or.us/it/soos/oli/ for
more detailed information and an application form

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Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 08:48:56 -0700 (PDT)

From: Dave Moursund
<moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: Summer institute at Pacific University in Forest
Grove, Oregon

The Berglund Summer Institute, to be presented June 16-21
at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon will
examination of the appropriate role of the Internet in
education. See http://bcis.pacificu.edu/

At the core of Berglund's mission is the examination of
the appropriate role of the Internet in education. Educators
at all levels and executives at software and hardware
companies are struggling with questions such as how much
computer interaction is appropriate, does it vary by
academic discipline, by grade level, by the age of the
student? Does the answer vary based upon the audience served
by different institutions?

Some argue that brick and mortar universities will
quickly be replaced by virtual campuses and professors will
no longer lecture, but will be transformed into
facilitators. Such predictions have, understandably, caused
ripples of fear to spread in some sectors of academia,
leaving a feeling of bitterness associated with the
Internet.

Others believe education would be best served if the role
of the Internet is limited to communication. They see the
Internet leading to standardization. They view online
education as restrained and confining. They question how
faculty can bring their best to online courses. They fear it
leads to shallow research and to plagiarism.

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Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 10:04:25 -0700 (PDT)

From: Dave Moursund
<moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: Invention of writing

Writing was invented by the Sumerians in approximately
3200 BC (a little over 5,000 years ago). The Website
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/
2002/05/21/cuneiform.htm contains a nice (relatively short)
description of the history of cuneiform and of current
projects to develop an online dictionary and to put a lot of
the early writings online.

--------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 16:18:07 -0700 (PDT)

From: Dave Moursund
<moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: ISTE & NECA Members Approve Merger!
(fwd)

---------- Forwarded message ----------

Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 15:50:38 &endash;0700

From: ISTE Membership Services
memberservices@iste.org

To: Leading ISTE Member members@discussion.iste.org

Subject: ISTE & NECA Members Approve Merger!

SPECIAL NOTICE TO ISTE MEMBERS

Members of the International Society for Technology in
Education and the National Educational Computing Association
have voted overwhelmingly to accept the bylaws of a new
organization to be formed by merging ISTE and NECA. The
merger becomes effective June 1, 2002. The resulting
organization will retain the name International Society for
Technology in Education with headquarters opening in
Washington, D.C., in the summer of 2002.

For 2002--2003, the "new" ISTE will be governed by a
board of directors formed by combining the membership of
both organizations' boards.

The full press release about this exciting merger can be
viewed at:

http://www.iste.org/news/2002/05/14-merger.html

Join us this year at NECC 2002 in San Antonio where we
will be celebrating this momentous occasion!

Sincerely,

Jack Buchanan

Director, Membership Services

==========

This message was forwarded by Dave Moursund, OTEC
Webmaster. Before the merger, both ISTE and NECA were
headquartered in Eugene, Oregon. It is my understanding that
the bulk of the employees of the merged companies will
remain in Eugene.

--------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 12:05:46 -0700 (PDT)

From: Dave Moursund
<moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: Small schools

The following is quoted from the May 9, 2001 issue of
Public Education Network PEN@PublicEducation.org

It is particularly relevant in Oregon, because Oregon has
a number of small schools and school district. It is
relevant to discussions about Distance Learning because
Distance Learning is especially helpful to students,
teachers, and schools in rural communities.

SMALL WORKS: VIRTUES OF SMALL SCHOOLS

The issue of school size is at the forefront of education
reform in this country. Time and again, research has shown
that small schools make a valuable and noticeable difference
in students' education. But while larger, urban schools are
embracing this evidence by downsizing or creating "schools
within schools," small, rural schools continue to be
consolidated out of existence due to the mistaken belief
that one big centralized school is more efficient, and
therefore, better. The result is a large, consolidated
school to which students must be bused long distances from
their homes, where there is no sense of community investment
in the school, and where parent and community participation
in school affairs suffers because the school district is so
distant. Recognizing schools as centers of communities, the
Rural Trust believes that smaller truly is better. This
article examines three small schools and gathers anecdotal
evidence to identify the characteristics of those schools
that can help explain why small works--and that small, rural
schools are worth saving.
http://www.ruralchallengepolicy.org/
rr_v3no2.html#small

--------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 09 May 2002 15:23:19 -0700 (PDT)

From: Dave Moursund
<moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: OTEC makes progress toward being admitted as an
ISTE

Affiliate

The message given below indicates that OTEC has made good
progress toward being accepted as an Affiliate of ISTE. You
can read about ISTE Affiliates at
http://www.iste.org/members/affiliates/index.html

The ISTE Affiliates hold a full day meeting at the
National Educational Computing Conference. This year's
meeting is on Saturday June 15. I will be attending that
meeting, and an organization can have more than one member
present. If you plan to attend or if you have information
that you would like me to convey to the Affiliates, please
let me know.

Thanks

Dave Moursund

College of Education

University of Oregon

Eugene, Oregon 97403

Phone 541.346.3564

Fax 541.346.5174

http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~moursund/dave/

http://otec.uoregon.edu/

---------- Forwarded message ----------

Date: Thu, 09 May 2002 21:06:28 +0000

From: snichols@smtp.iste.org

To: moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU

Subject: OTEC

Hi Dave,

Congratulations! The OTEC application was approved by the
Affiliate Executive Committee for Affiliate status pending
the ISTE Board approval. Once the ISTE Board meets (first
week of June), you will receive a packet in the mail
explaining benefits of Affiliation. For now, I'd like to
invite you to attend the Affiliate meeting at NECC in San
Antonio. It is on Saturday June 15 7:30 am- 5 pm at the
Hyatt. There is also a reception the night before from 7-9
pm.

Will someone from OTEC join us? If so please let me know
as soon as you can so that I can reserve you a spot!

Thanks

Sarah

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Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2002 15:41:09 -0700 (PDT)

From: Dave Moursund
<moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: Ashland, Oregon featured in new FREE sites

As you all know, FREE is a large collection of Web
materials made available by various US Government agencies.
The latest additions to FREE included:

"Ashland, Oregon: From Stage Coach to Center Stage"
highlights 32 historic places in this community located 14
miles north of California at the foot of Mt. Ashland. These
places together illustrate the development of Ashland from a
small transportation & farming center founded in 1852
into a community with a strong cultural identity. (NPS,NRHP)
http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/ashland/

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Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2002 15:18:13 -0700 (PDT)

From: Dave Moursund
<moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: Web design for children

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, April 14, 2002: Kids' Corner:
Website Usability for Children The Executive Summary is well
worth reading it is available at:
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20020414.html.

Summary quoted from the Executive Summary:

Our usability study of kids found that they are as easily
stumped by confusing websites as adults. Unlike adults,
however, kids tend to view ads as content, and click
accordingly. They also like colorful designs, but demand
simple text and navigation.

The following is the Usability Problems Hurt Kids section
of this Executive Summary of the full report. (They want a
significant amount of money for the full report.)

The idea that children are masters of technology and can
defeat any computer-related difficulty is a myth. Our study
found that children are incapable of overcoming many
usability problems. Also, poor usability, combined with
kids' lack of patience in the face of complexity, resulted
in many simply leaving websites. A fourth-grader said, "When
I don't know what to do on a Web page, I just go look for
something else."

Also, children don't like slow downloads any more than
adults do. As one first-grade girl said, "Make it go faster!
Maybe if I click it, it will go faster..."

Young children often have hand-me-down computers, whether
at home (where they often inherit older machines when their
parents upgrade) or at school (where budget constraints
mandate keeping machines in service for many years). Kids
also typically have slow connections and outdated software.
Given these limitations, websites must avoid technical
problems or crashes related to access by low-end equipment.
Faced with an error message, kids in our study told us that
they see them a lot, and that the best thing to do is to
ignore them or close the window and find something else to
do. Usability Problems Hurt Kids

Several types of classic Web usability problems caused
difficulties for the kids in our study:

Unclear navigational confirmation of the user's location
confused users both within sites and when leaving them.
Inconsistent navigation options, where the same destination
was referred to in different ways, caused users to visit the
same feature repeatedly, because they didn't know they had
already been there. Non-standard interaction techniques
caused predictable problems, such as making it impossible
for users to select their preferred game using a "games
machine." Lack of perceived clickability affordances, such
as overly flat graphics, caused users to miss features
because they overlooked the links. Fancy wording in
interfaces confused users and prevented them from
understanding the available choices.

Several types of classic Web usability problems caused
difficulties for the kids in our study:

* Unclear navigational confirmation of the user's
location confused users both within sites and when leaving
them.

* Inconsistent navigation options, where the same
destination was referred to in different ways, caused users
to visit the same feature repeatedly, because they didn't
know they had already been there.

* Non-standard interaction techniques caused predictable
problems, such as making it impossible for users to select
their preferred game using a "games machine."

* Lack of perceived clickability affordances, such as
overly flat graphics, caused users to miss features because
they overlooked the links.

* Fancy wording in interfaces confused users and
prevented them from understanding the available choices.

From time to time you have received OTEC messages
stressing how computer technology is changing the sciences.
(For example, we now have Computational Biology,
Computational Chemistry, Computational Physics.)

Here is a brief Quote from a National Science Foundation
RFP. It indicates that the NSF is trying to give a big push
to Computational Biology.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the
National Institutes of Health (NIH) have identified
bioengineering and bioinformatics as essential
underpinning fields in the 21st century. The agencies are
collaborating on an important high profile effort to meet
the anticipated bioengineering and bioinformatics human
resource needs.

The purpose of this high value program is to provide
students majoring in the biological sciences, computer
sciences, engineering, mathematics, and physical sciences
with well planned interdisciplinary bioengineering or
bioinformatics research and education experiences in very
active 'Summer Institutes', thereby increasing the number
of young people considering careers in bioengineering and
bioinformatics at the graduate level and beyond. For the
purpose of the Program Solicitation, bioengineering and
bioinformatics are considered in their broadest sense; we
welcome innovative applications from all arenas.

http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2002/
nsf02109/nsf02109.htm

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Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2002 09:03:57 -0800 (PST)

From: Dave Moursund
<moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: Computer transcription of lectures

The Liberated Learning Project is testing computer
transcription of college class lectures in three countries.
Here is a little information:

Stanford University is the first test site in
the United States for a Canadian system designed to give
students with disabilities a better shot at succeeding in
college.

Students testing the Liberated Learning Project (LLP)
at colleges and universities in Canada, Britain, and
Australia find they no longer need note takers at
lectures where LLP is used.

Although LLP adds some extra work for the lecturer,
students, including those without disabilities, give the
innovation positive reviews.

Using voice-activated software, the system immediately
converts a teacher's words into print that is flashed
onto a large screen.

After the lecturer edits the session for accuracy and
corrects words that sound the same, the lecture is made
available to all students online. For the visually
impaired, it can be quickly translated into Braille.

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Date: Fri, 08 Mar 2002 14:12:01 -0800 (PST)

From: Dave Moursund
<moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: School reform: computers get a good mention

The materials given below are quoted from
http://www.ets.org/news/02011701.html which is an
Educational Testing Service Website. The complete report is
available free through an address given on that Website.
Notice the fifth numbered item in the quoted document.
[I numbered the items that were originally given as
bullets.]

---------------

Princeton, N.J. (Jan. 17, 2002) A decade of research on
factors affecting student achievement shows that current
efforts to reform elementary and secondary education need to
go far beyond federal law, standards, and accountability,
according to a new study by the ETS Policy Information
Center.

Facing the Hard Facts in Education Reform identifies key
factors that influence educational achievement that are
often overlooked during education reform. The author, Paul
Barton, of ETS's Policy Information Center, says these
issues need to be included in current reform efforts.

Barton notes that a decade of research has identified the
following obstacles to high academic performance by the
nation's students:

increased tardiness, absenteeism, drug use, and
verbal abuse of teachers by students, as well as the
presence of gangs in schools

weak signals students receive from parents on the
importance of doing better academically, too much
emphasis on extracurricular affairs, and students' fear
of being less popular if they work hard

mixed messages from prospective employers who fail to
look at student transcripts when they hire and colleges
that establish low admission standards

failure to understand the importance of preschool
development and the critical role that parents play in
such areas as reading to young children and restricting
TV watching

lack of effective use of computers in the classroom,
due in large part to inadequate preparation of teachers
in their use

viewing the test itself as the treatment, rather than
using standardized tests to determine whether efforts to
create content standards, performance standards,
curriculum change, and teacher preparation are
working

"In identifying these areas, I do not suggest that we
lessen our efforts in implementing the standards-based
reform agenda," Barton concludes. "It makes good and common
sense to make instruction rigorous, set high standards, and
develop quality standardized tests. However, in a full
standards-based reform effort, testing is just one important
component."

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Date: Mon, 04 Mar 2002 09:29:46 -0800 (PST)

From: Dave Moursund
<moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: ocite: Science of teaching and Learning

The word "science" in Science of Teaching and Learning
refers to use of scientific methods, research based methods.
A good overview of this topic is available in the
proceedings of a recent conference:

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, which
reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act,
calls for the use of "scientifically based research" as
the foundation for many education programs and for
classroom instruction.

On February 6, 2002, Assistant Secretary for
Elementary and Secondary Education Susan Neuman hosted a
seminar where leading experts in the fields of education
and science discussed the meaning of scientifically based
research and its status across various disciplines. Below
is the transcript of the seminar.

Russell Gersten from the University of Oregon was one of
the discussants in the conference. He talked about math
education. One of his findings is that pairing students up
is effective. (Cooperative learning, or peer tutoring, in
groups of two, with heterogeneous students.) He also found
that providing students with good feedback on how well they
are doing on specific topics (perhaps every two weeks) is
effective. His findings are based on an analysis of the
research literature.

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Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2002 12:31:43 -0800 (PST)

From: Dave Moursund <moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: Arguments against IT in education

Most of us OTEC members are supportive of IT in
education. However, not all people support substantial use
of IT in education. There are a number of people who have
written and spoken about the downside of IT in education.
The OTEC Website contains a reasonably substantial annotated
bibliography of arguments against IT in education. It has
recently been updated and expanded. See:
http://otec.uoregon.edu/arguments_against.htm If you have
suggestions for additions to that Webpage, please send them
to me.

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you can send email (from the address where you received this
message) to <majordomo@lists.uoregon.edu> with the
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Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 12:40:35 -0800 (PST)

From: Dave Moursund <moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Cc: Ira Erbs <ierbs@pja.pvt.k12.or.us>

Subject: Historical data on prices of computers

Thanks to Ira Erbs <ierbs@pja.pvt.k12.or.us> two
new references have been added to the History of
Calculators, Computers, and Internet page of the OTEC site.
This is at http://otec.uoregon.edu/history_of_computers.htm.
UVIVAC Memories [Online]. Accessed 2/20/02:
http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/univac/index.html. Quoting
from the Website: People who have used a 100 megabyte hard
drive that weighed two and a quarter tons and cost more than
US$130,000 in 1968 experience a special sense of wonder when
tucking one of today's 2.1 gigabyte drives, just purchased
for less than US$1,000 and weighing less than half a kilo,
into their pocket. ^Ê In 1968 you could pick up a 1.3
MHz CPU with half a megabyte of RAM and 100 megabyte hard
drive for a mere US$1.6 million.

As an example, consider a computer system costing US$1
million in 1967. To convert to dollars for the year 2000,
divide by .194. The result is US$5.15 million.

Or, consider the data given in UNIVAC Memories. The
$130,000 2.25 ton 100 megabyte hard drive of 1968 is
equivalent to #130,000/.202 = $644,000 in year 2000
dollars.

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Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002 14:36:10 -0800 (PST)

From: Dave Moursund <moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: ocite: Future Teacher Conference

Oregon's First Annual Future Teacher Conference will be
held on March 2 at Linn Benton Community College. Details
and registration materials are available at
http://www.clubed.pdx.edu/FTC.html

The Future Teacher Conference is a one-day event with the
goal of providing high school seniors and college students
with the skills and information they need to become
successful teachers. The conference is designed and
organized by students, to guarantee that the topics of
discussion and the speakers will be relevant and of interest
to them. The members of the planning committee are students
from various two- and four-year colleges around Oregon. A
few faculty members are also serving on the planning
committee for support and assistance .

- - - - - - -

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Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002 14:09:35 -0800 (PST)

From: Dave Moursund <moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: Gender Equity

The brief news item given later in this email has
recently been added to the OTEC site. The OTEC site contains
an extensive annotated bibliography of Gender Equity
resources. See:
http://otec.uoregon.edu/women_and_computing.htm

Here's an idea--In whatever discipline you teach, assign
your students to study and write about Gender Equity within
that discipline. Or, pick a specific area such as Gender
Equity in Technology and make the same assignment--both for
girls and for boys.

----------------

Gender Equity

A recent study by computer scientist Tracy Camp reports
that the percentage of women who earned undergraduate
computer science degrees has dropped from 37% of total in
1984 to less than 20% in 1999. Anita Borg, founder of the
Institute for Women and Technology at Xerox's Palo Alto
Research Center, has this explanation of the problem: "Part
of the image of working on computers is working to create
gadgets -- techie stuff having nothing to do with people's
lives. Young women want to have a positive impact on people.
If we can get across that there are powerful ways to have a
hugely positive impact on people, then maybe we can turn
that image around... Women are not there filling the slots,
and the companies are too shortsighted to go out of their
way to recruit them. Even when human resources people ask,
'How do we get the women? How do we bring in the minority
people?' they only want to know how to get them this week.
They are unwilling to consider their environment and their
advertising." (San Jose Mercury News 11 Feb 2002)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/ mld/siliconvalley/2651855.htm
(NewsScan Daily, 12 February 2002).

- - - - - - - I

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Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2002 09:49:05 -0800 (PST)

From: Dave Moursund <moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: Recent News Items

From time to time Brief News Items (and comments
discussing their educational implications) are posted to the
OTEC Website. The following list consists of titles of
recent postings.

Faster, Faster: No Slowdown in Moore's Law". We
are experiencing continued very rapid progress in
building faster microprocessors.

Majority of U.S. Population Now On the Internet

Implanted Electrodes Help Paralyzed Man Walk Again.
Digital Equity Toolkit. A free set of materials designed
to help educators address the Digital Divide issue. Voice
Input of Teacher's Lecture. Voice input can now be used
to provide a transcript of a faculty member's
presentation to a class.

Managing the Memories. Indexing and making
accessibility a tape library of more than 50,000 video
tapes.

Steadily Increasing Amounts of Distance Learning in
Higher Education.

Each of these Brief News Items is a "clickable" item on
the OTEC Website Homepage at: http://otec.uoregon.edu/

---------------

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Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 14:05:05 -0800 (PST)

From: Dave Moursund <moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: Oregon's CCGs in Information Technology

The Oregon Department of Education has a Webpage where it
places information about Instructional Technology Standards.
It is located at:
http://www.ode.state.or.us/cifs/technology/

You may be especially interested in two items on that
page. The first is a link to the current Common Curriculum
Goals for technology, while the second is a link used to
provide input on and feedback on a proposed new set of CCGs
for technology. The Oregon Department of Education is
looking for input through the end of this month.

At the current time, there is set of seven Common
Curriculum Goals for Technology:

TECHNOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE: Demonstrate understanding of
technological concepts and processes, and their relationship
to and impact on other disciplines.

Understand the nature and evolution of
technology.

Understand that technology can be used to solve
problems and meet needs.

Assess the impacts and consequences of
technology.

Understand the relationships between technology and
other disciplines.

Adapt technological concepts and processes to
biological, informational and physical systems to form
technologies and solve practical problems.

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Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 10:18:44 -0800 (PST)

From: Dave Moursund
<moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: ocite: Multimedia

For a number of years, ISTE's SIGHyper has run a
multimedia contest for students and their teachers.

The rubrics used in this contest are useful to any
teacher who has students doing hypermedia. They are
available at:http://www.ncsu.edu/midlink/rub.multi.htm

The contest itself may well interest some of your
students. Moreover, the Contest Website offers access to
trail versions of good software. See:

http://www.ncsu.edu/midlink/mmania.how.html

Quoting from this Website:

This awards program is for students and teachers
who use multimedia to teach and learn in a specific
content area (e.g., math, science, social studies,
language arts, art, music, physical education, ESL, etc.)
Students are invited to share their work with an
international audience by creating dynamic multimedia
projects related to any class or coursework. Multimedia
Mania winners usually come from classrooms in which
technology is used as a tool to teach and learn any
standard curriculum. Teachers may coach and advise, but
work must be completed by students in grades K-12.

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Date: Wed, 09 Jan 2002 13:20:19 -0800 (PST)

From: Dave Moursund <moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: ocite: Agenda for Board Meeting 2/1/02 in
Portland

The OTEC Board is meeting 9:00 to 3:00 on Friday February
1 in the Smith Memorial Center at Portland State University.
This is an open meeting, so any OTEC member and any other
interested people can attend.

Details of the Agenda can be found by going to OTEC's
Homepage at http://otec.uoregon.edu/ and looking in the
Announcements section near the top of the page.

If you have items that you would like to bring to the
Board's attention, please send them directly to me via
email.

--------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2001 10:03:39 -0800 (PST)

From: Dave Moursund <moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Cc: Nancy Willard <nwillard@ordata.com>

Subject: Important information for all school
administrators

Please bring the following information to the attention
of school administrators. It is information that has
recently been added to the School Administrator's page of
the OTEC Website.

This Planning Guide addresses the wide range of issues
that districts will have to consider to achieve compliance
with CIPA. The primary focus on the Guide is on the
substantive issues related to the development of a
comprehensive plan to address concerns regarding the safe
and responsible use of the Internet by young people. The
Guide also presents positive strategies to address concerns
related to the use of Technology Protection Measures, most
specifically the concern of the prevention of access to
appropriate material.

The Guide includes templates for a district Policy,
district regulations, a Student Internet Use Policy, a
Student/Parent Agreement, and a text-version of the Internet
Safe and Responsible Use Plan in format that can be provided
to the community. Educators may modify any of the templates
provided to serve the local community.

--------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2001 14:27:29 -0800 (PST)

From: Dave Moursund <moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: Telesurgery

Here is a brief news item I found particularly
interesting, and my comment. (And, I am wishing you the best
of holidays and a happy new year!).

Telesurgery

In a discussion of "the telesurgery revolution" in The
Futurist magazine, surgeon Jacques Marescau, a professor at
the European Institute of Telesurgery, offers the following
description of the success of the remotely performed
surgical procedure as the beginning of a "third revolution"
in surgery within the last decade: "The first was the
arrival of minimally invasive surgery, enabling procedures
to be performed with guidance by a camera, meaning that the
abdomen and thorax do not have to be opened. The second was
the introduction of computer-assisted surgery, where
sophisticated software algorithms enhance the safety of the
surgeon's movements during a procedure, rendering them more
accurate, while introducing the concept of distance between
the surgeon and the patient. It was thus a natural
extrapolation to imagine that this distance--currently
several meters in the operating room--could potentially be
up to several thousand kilometers." A high-speed fiber optic
connection between New York and France makes it possible to
achieve an average time delay of only 150 milliseconds. "I
felt as comfortable operating on my patient as if I had been
in the room," says Marescaux. (The Futurist Jan/Feb 2002)
(NewsScan Daily, 20 December 2001)

Comment: This brief article discusses
three major changes in surgery that have begun during the
past decade, and that are due to progress in Information
and Communications Technology. These are examples of ICT
becoming a significant component of the field of
medicine. Each area of human intellectual endeavor is
being significantly changed by ICT. As educators, we
should be implementing changes in curriculum content,
instructional processes, assessment, and our own
professional work to appropriately reflect the continuing
rapid pace of change that ICT is bringing to all of the
areas that we teach. Unfortunately our rate of progress
in these endeavors is lagging behind the pace of change
of ICT.

--------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2001 09:40:28 -0800 (PST)

From: Dave Moursund
<moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: ocite: Four important items

This is a general emailing to the OTEC membership,
covering four topics:

The following brief news item is aimed at business
people. We (educators) are in the business of helping
students learn. Education is a very large business. It is
quite interesting and challenging to think about the
educational system meaning of John Scully's statement.
Are you "future ready?"

When Darwin magazine asked John Sculley, the Pepsi
Cola marketing genius who replaced Steve Jobs (and was
himself eventually replaced) as CEO of Apple Computer,
"What's the most important lesson that people can learn
from technology?" he answered: "They can learn to be
future-ready. That means they have to adapt to probably
the biggest power shift since the introduction by Henry
Ford 100 years ago. They have to adapt to a shift from
producers in control of important business decisions to a
new world where customers are in control of everything
and customers are defining what brands they want. And the
customers will be extremely demanding. They will want the
best quality, the best service, the cheapest prices
customized exactly the way they want it and they will
want it right away. The question is, how does a company
make money when customers have so much control over so
many things?" (Darwin 15 Nov 2001)
http://www.darwinmag.com/read/thoughts/ (NewsScan Daily,
5 December 2001)

The International Society for Technology in Education
has released its Standards for School Administrators. I
strongly encourage you to direct school administrators to
the OTEC Website page:
http://otec.uoregon.edu/school_administrators.htm When
you do so, it will be helpful if you are familiar with
the contents of this page, including the new ISTE
Standards.

The OTEC Website has reached the level of containing
useful information for all preservice and inservice
teachers, and teachers of teachers. If there are topics
that you feel need to be added or expanded, please send
your suggestions (and, suggestions on specific Web links)
to me. AND, please begin to get use of the Website
integrated into preservice and inservice education, and
into the everyday lives of educators at all levels.

The OTEC Board will be meeting in Portland on
February 1, 2002. We will likely approve a Constitution
and Bylaws. The current drafts can be located by going to
the OTEC Homepage: http://otec.uoregon.edu/ Feedback is
still being sought. In addition, we are sill looking for
people who are interested in serving on the Board.

I wish all of you happy holidays and a great new
year.

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Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2001 14:49:22 -0800 (PST)

From: Dave Moursund <moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: ocite: Talented and Gifted

Many of you have children who are Talented and Gifted.
All of you know of children who have been or could be
classified as TAG. The TAG Webpage on the OTEC Website has
been substantially updated during the past two weeks. To get
to it, look under the "Announcements" section on OTEC's
Homepage: http://otec.uoregon.edu/ In addition, more
materials have been added to the Lesson Plans page (also
listed in the Announcements section of the OTEC Homepage).

Both of these OTEC WebPages may be of interest to your
students and colleagues. PLEASE HELP TO PUBLICIZE THEM.

- - - - - - -

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Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2001 11:22:01 -0800 (PST)

From: Dave Moursund <moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: ocite: OTEC Website now has a section on Lesson
Plans

The "References" section of the OTEC Website has been
expanded by the addition of a section on Lesson Plans and
Websites for Teachers. This new section is highlighted on
OTEC's HomePage at http://otec.uoregon.edu/ Please tell your
colleagues and students about the OTEC Website.

Thanks

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Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 10:52:48 -0800 (PST)

From: Dave Moursund <moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: ocite: Technology Review magazine

Technology Review is one of my favorite magazines. I have
been a subscriber for many years. The magazine is also
available free on the Web at http://www.techreview.com/ The
December issue contains an article: The Next Computer
Interface By Claire Tristram. In brief summary The desktop
metaphor was a brilliant innovationQ30 years ago. Now it's
an unmanageable mess, and the search is on for a better way
to handle information. It is interesting to see some of the
ideas that are being developed for replacing the desktop
metaphor.

- - - - - - -

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Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2001 11:00:10 -0800 (PST)

From: Dave Moursund <moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: Hertert A Simon

This brief message has two purposes. First, please note
that the organization EDUCAUSE publishes a very useful
periodical EDUCAUSE Review that they make available free
online at: http://www.educause.edu/pub/er/erm.html. The
organization focuses on IT in higher education.

Second, a piece of history. Herbert Simon was one of the
pioneers in the field of Computer and Information Science.
His interests were wide ranging, and he contributed to many
parts of the field. He is especially known for his
contributions in Artificial Intelligence. He was awarded the
1978 Nobel Prize for his work in Economics. The Website
listed above contains a copy of his 1987 article The Steam
Engine and the Computer: What Makes Technology
Revolutionary. This article suggests that (in 1987) the
field of IT was still very young relative to how long it
takes a major technology (such as the steam engine) to have
a significant impact on the world.

Note Aded 11/16/02: Herbert Simon died February 9, 2002.
He was one of the pioneers of the compute field. The
Steam Engine and the Computer is available at
http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0132.pdf.

--------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 10:30:44 -0800 (PST)

From: Dave Moursund <moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: Funds to defray expenses of OTEC Board Meeting

The OTEC Board will meet at Portland State University on
February 1, 2001.

Moursund's PTTT grant has recently received some
supplementary funding that can help to cover travel expenses
of those currently on the Board and for some others who are
interested in serving on the Board.

If you are currently on the OTEC Board and/or if you are
interested in serving on the Board, please contact me for
details on this funding.

-------------------

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Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2001 12:50:17 -0800 (PST)

From: Dave Moursund <moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: ocite: Good, FREE educational resources

Each month I receive a notice like the following:

Sixteen new resources in the arts, health,
language arts, science, & social studies have been
added to the Federal Resources for Educational Excellence
(FREE) website. FREE makes it easy for teachers, parents,
students, & others to find teaching & learning
resources from more than 40 federal organizations.
http://www.ed.gov/free/

The FREE site now contains a huge amount of good stuff.
If you haven't checked it out lately, you may be surprised!
Among other things, this site contains access to:

Gateway to Educational Materials
(http://www.thegateway.org/), which offers a database of
more than 17,000 education resources across more than 100
web sites. This database is made possible by the
Federally supported GEM Consortium, a group of
non-federal organizations and Federal agencies that have
developed an education-specific metadata profile,
controlled vocabularies, and tools for using the profile
and vocabularies.

--------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 12:00:58 -0800 (PST)

From: Dave Moursund <moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: ocite: Geographic Awareness Week

The week November 12-16 is the National Geographic
Awareness Week. You might want to visit the Website of the
Oregon Geographic Alliance:

The OTEC Board will meet on February 1, 2002 at Portland
State University. Details are available on the Home Page of
the OTEC Website, http://otec.uoregon.edu/

People who are not currently on the Board are welcome to
attend. (This is an excellent opportunity to get yourself
involved in OTEC activities, and perhaps become a Board
member!)

One of the "Action Items" at this meeting will be voting
on the Draft Constitution and Bylaws. A copy of these
documents can be viewed by going to the OTEC Homepage. We
are seeking feedback from all people who have an interest in
OTEC.

--------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 15:36:20 -0700 (PDT)

From: Dave Moursund <moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: ocite: Software for students in Arizona

Arizona has about 850,000 students in its public schools.
The following brief news item discusses a statewide purchase
of software for these students.

MASSIVE ASP DEAL CALLED
"UNPRECEDENTED"

The state government in Arizona has signed the
largest-ever applications service provider deal to
provide Microsoft Office applications to 850,000
students. Arizona will pay $8.16 per user in the deal
with Cox Communications. Because the Arizona Supreme
Court ruled in 1996 that the state must provide students
with equal access to facilities and equipment,
jurisdiction over technology purchases was centralized,
and Arizona officials began planning a statewide
infrastructure. In February, the state struck a deal with
Qwest to provide high-speed bandwidth to its schools, and
Cox Communications expects to sell cable modem service to
students who want to access the Office applications from
home. (Computerworld, 27 August 2001) (Edupage, August
29, 2001)

Schools in Oregon can purchase software (such as
mentioned above) through the Oregon Educational Technology
Comsortium (http://www.oetc.org/), at very competitive
prices.

--------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 14:55:14 -0700 (PDT)

From: Dave Moursund <moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: School Administrator IT Standards from ISTE

Version 3.0 of the Draft Technology Standards for School
Administrators is up on the ISTE Website for viewing and for
submitting feedback. Go to http://cnets.iste.org/tssa/

--------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 09:38:59 -0700 (PDT)

From: Dave Moursund <moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: Social Studies

Those of you who are interested in social studies
education may want to look at the following website: Conway,
Grant. Professional Website [Online]. Accessed
8/15/01: http://www.4j.lane.edu/~conway/index.html. Grant
Conway teaches a variety of social studies courses at
Churchill High School in Eugene, Oregon. In addition, he
teaches a social studies methods course for preservice
teachers at the University of Oregon. In addition to all of
this, he is a doctoral student at the UO, with a specific
interest in improving social studies instruction through
appropriate use of IT and other approaches.

--------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2001 14:13:13 -0700 (PDT)

From: Dave Moursund
<moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

To: Oregon Technology in Education Council
<ocite@lists.uoregon.edu>

Subject: Another IT community idea? (fwd)

In the message given below, an Oregon teacher is looking
for others interested in teaching IT and CS at the
precollege level.

Dave Moursund

---------- Forwarded message ----------

Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2001 07:45:24 -0700

From: Boo Rayburn <booooo@teleport.com>

To: moursund@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU

Subject: Another IT community idea?

I was looking around your web page and found the page
http://otec.uoregon.edu/it-using-educators.htm. On it you
asked about starting a virtual community of IT using
educators... I am curious about being involved with other
teachers who are teaching computer applications, web design,
programming, etc. to middle and high school students. This
would be a great area to share projects and help to get some
technology scoring guides (that really work) in place. I
have also found that there is not a lot of consistency
between schools on what is included in a course that is
titled " computer 1" yet several schools have a "Computer 1"
class...